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Five years ago
Jake
“You aren’t worthy of the name Delancey.”
My fathers words hung heavy in the air. Daniel sucked in a breath. Even Jackson looked upset. I was the only one who looked stone cold.
Me and the old man.
We were cut from the same cloth. We all knew it. He’d been wild in his younger days, just like me. He’d just been better at hiding it.
He’d told me a thousand times. It didn’t matter what you did. As long as you got away with it.
I didn’t agree with him. It did matter. I had lines I wouldn’t cross.
But for the most part, I just didn’t give a good goddamn about the rules.
“It makes me sick to look at you.”
“Jesus Christ, dad,” Jackson burst out. But no one said anything else.
“I’ll help you out with that,” I eventually drawled out, sounding like I wasn’t screaming inside. “You’ll never have to look at me again.”
“Walk out that door and you will never be welcomed back,” he warned, his face turning an alarming shade of red. “You’re out of the will, the estate, everything.”
“Good,” I said, standing in the doorway to the dinner room. We’d had a lot of tense dinners over the year, but this one took the cake. “I don’t want anything from you.”
I tilted my head and stared at him for a minute before taking one last parting shot.
“When she died, she took the last bit of good in you with her.”
I turned on my heel and strode upstairs to pack a few things. Very few things. But I needed the keys to my ride, my wallet, and my motorcycle jacket. I shoved the picture of my mother that sat on my dresser into my duffle along with a couple shirts and jeans.
I took one last look around. My bedroom had been a haven growing up. Cushy, luxurious, and filled with memories of my mother. Now it was a cage.
I didn’t need it anymore.
I ran down the carpeted stairs, not nothing to muffle my steps.
As soon as I stepped through the massive front doors to the mansion I saw her. A cute little waif with a mop of red hair. She was staring at me, looking bereft.
“You aren’t really going, are you Jake?”
“Sorry, Phee,” I muttered to my young cousin. Her cheeks were streaked with tears. We were buddies, riding together most mornings. I would miss the hell out of her. “I have to go.”
“Come back, Jake! He’ll calm down. You both will!”
“I can’t. But I will let you know where I am. Never tell.”
She nodded. The kid was barely a teenager, but I knew she would keep her word. She was solid like that.
“I’ll miss you, kid,” I said, before chucking her chin and striding down the path to the driveway. I climbed on my ride, hit the throttle and gave the big house one last look.
Then I turned away and rode into the night.
Chapter One
Jake
It felt good to be on the move again. I’d stayed too long in that last place. It was past time to get back on the road.
I gripped the handlebars of my Harley, my calloused hands barely feeling the strain of riding all day. My heavily muscled forearms were tanned where they peeked out of my broken-in black leather jacket. It was almost too warm for the jacket. I could have done with just a vest. But if I didn't wear it, I’d have to pack it.
And I liked to travel light.
Material possessions didn't mean anything to me. I’d grown up rich as fuck and where had that got me? Fucking nowhere. It was all an illusion anyway. None of it mattered. I didn’t need a cushy lifestyle. I had a handful of worn in clothes. A phone, my boots and my bike. That's it. I moved from place to place when the urge struck me.
And it struck often.
Nothing had any permanence in this life and that's the way I liked it. Easy come, easy go. I had a take it as it comes attitude when it came to clothes, personal belongings, friends and women.
Especially women.
In fact, I had just taken off from my last apartment when Suzy, one of the girls who hung around the bar I worked in, got a little too clingy. Hell, she got a lot too clingy. She'd started acting like she was my girlfriend.
I snorted. A girlfriend. That was a laugh. I didn't believe in relationships.
Hell, I didn't believe in much of anything.
A good beer, a good meal, a good lay. That and the feeling of my bike between my legs, hugging the road, riding like the wind. I liked to go fast.
I got a lot of traffic tickets. But that was okay. I could afford it.
The way I saw it, the family lawyer was on retainer whether I used him or not. It was the only thing I took from my family. And it was the only thing I ever would. I was well aware that my father had written me out of his will and I didn’t really give a damn about it. I still had money from the trust my mother had set up when she was dying, not that I would ever touch it. But this was one perk of being a Delancey that I accepted. As aggravating as my family was at times, that lawyer had come in handy after a bar fight or twelve. Especially the time I broke a guys jaw for hitting a woman in the parking lot.
